I get a lot of questions regarding why I teach an emphasis on the hammer fist and more unconventional striking methods. Please keep in mind that we can discuss two different methodologies when it comes to striking, which are sportive and combative. I am a huge fan of MMA, boxing, kickboxing and freestyle martial arts and I have competed in all of these arenas in the last thirty years. Eighteen years ago, I became a police officer and since then have been trying to find ways to take my sportive experience and apply it to a more combative application. This has been fun, enlightening, frustrating, confusing and back to exciting, enlightening, and thought provoking. The major issue with sportive striking methods is that the human body can generate more power than the human hand can absorb if contact is not made precisely the same way every time. If making precise strikes was easy, then professional fighters who are involved in street confrontations would have no trouble making the transfer from a sportive to a combative methodology. Unfortunately, this is not the case as numerous incidents involving broken hands with professional fighters both in and out of the ring and cage abound. Don’t get me wrong, I still love traditional boxing and kickboxing striking techniques in their sportive applications. I just don’t endorse using them at full power in a combative application.

A worse case scenario could look like this: Imagine a police officer who is involved in an altercation with a combative suspect. They are in a knock down drag out fight and the officer now fears for his life and escalates to full speed full power punching. He manages to knock the suspect down with a mighty overhand right but breaks his hand in the process. The officer is right handed and has now lost the use of his right hand. To make matters worse, three generations of the suspect’s family are now headed his way. The officer is right handed and cannot draw his weapon due to the damage sustained from throwing a picture perfect overhand right that landed slightly off in the fog of war. He cannot quickly handcuff his suspect and make a run for it because handcuffing cannot be done quickly with one hand. Sound bad? This happened to a friend of mine and the only thing that saved him was the emergency button on his radio which brought the cavalry quickly to his aide.

If this had happened to an average police officer with no sportive or combative experience it would have been easy to pass off the broken hand as “the cost of doing business.” Fortunately for us, this officer had professional boxing and kickboxing experience and knew the business of sportive striking very well. This gave us a hint that the sportive applications were not transferring to the combative and we began to search to refine our techniques.

While discussing this incident with the officer, I remember a conversation I had with Sam Jones back in the 80’s. Sam is a boxing and kickboxing coach in southern Ohio and a high level black belt in Bando. Sam is also a former contender in the professional boxing ranks as well as a holder of numerous kickboxing titles. Sam ran a bar as well as his boxing gym and one night after boxing training we were discussing the fact that Sam had broken his hands so many times that he no longer used traditional boxing punches when involved in conflicts at the bar. We then discussed the Bando Boar punches which are the same as the old school hatchet and hammer fist shots. Sam demonstrated the technique and its many applications as well as how the shots were not as dependant on stance as traditional striking techniques. Sam banged a few of these off my boxing guard and it was amazing how much force was carried through my shielding forearms and into my head. I then used these techniques to get me through my college job of bouncing in the bars at Ohio University in Athens Ohio. They definitely save the hands and there is nothing like a quick, short hammer fist to the top of a free swinging drunks head to make him blink, sag, and become very easy to restrain and escort. No residual effects, no broken bones, just quick disorientation and quick control.

It would stand to reason that I would have remembered this valuable lesson and carried it into my law enforcement career, but alas, maturity and common sense came late to this ignorant soul. Roughly fourteen years ago, I brought back the idea of boxing with the hammer fists and have been refining the idea ever since. I have used it on the street and I have used it in the cage and have found it to be equally effective in both realms. Now in the MMA world, I am just a ham and egger. My dreams of sportive glory are over and now I compete when I can because it’s a great way to test the capacity to keep your head and solve problems. My focus now is on techniques that can save my keister when I need them and have less risk of causing injury to myself while throwing them.

The hammer fist techniques fit these criteria because it really doesn’t matter what area of the body you hit with them, you can still get an affect out of your opponent. If I go to throw a hammer fist shot and the suspect shields, I can still get an affect out of him. If a traditional punch is shielded, you have a much greater chance of breaking your hand. The hammers can also be easily blended with elbow techniques and tie-ups to create a continuous flow of techniques which don’t require memorization, just familiarization. In fact, while we do drills that have some pattern repetition, each participant is encouraged to find their own flow and blends that work for them. After a short period of familiarization, the hammer fist striking method is easily incorporated into sparring and everyone involved can experience for themselves the effectiveness of the techniques.

A good start to incorporating these ideas into your fight strategy is to start on the heavy bag with light shots from numerous angles. Keep the fists tight but the rest of the arm loose and see how many angles you can come up with to hit from. The possibilities are truly endless. Then, do some drilling with a partner back and forth against each other’s shielded arms in order to see that you can bounce them off his shielding forearms and do no damage to yourself. You will also notice how much power carries through your own shielding arms when your partner is throwing. Again, take it easy, no point in giving each other brain damage. The point is to develop a healthy amount of respect for the technique and its numerous applications. When you are ready to introduce it into your sparring, make sure you pad up and wear headgear and a mouthpiece. Even at fifty percent speed and power, you will feel the impact so be careful and enjoy!